


Miser, desinas ineptire et quod vides perisse perditum ducas

by nerddowell



Series: Dead Romans Society [2]
Category: Dead Romans Society
Genre: M/M, Pining, catullus is a baby in (unrequited) love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 12:39:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3978385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerddowell/pseuds/nerddowell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a <i>thing</i> with Catullus and Ovid now. But Catullus hasn't learned his lesson...</p><p>Title from Catullus <i>VIII</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Miser, desinas ineptire et quod vides perisse perditum ducas

Since that one fateful encounter at Cicero's party, everyone has noticed a change in their behaviour. It's not as though they've never been flirtatious with one another before - on the contrary, Ovid has always been a seductive, tactile kind of man, always running his fingers lightly over Catullus' skin and smirking at him, and his heavy-lidded eyes lend themselves naturally to an expression of perpetual, heated desire - but now, the flirting is in earnest, and more than once Cicero has told them that they're "All over each other, enough to make bystanders nauseous".

Ovid had just laughed, shrugging it off as a prudish old man trying to stop the young 'uns from having fun. Catullus had laughed as well, but Ovid's hand looped around his wrist as he guides him away towards the central park of their neat, bright little afterlife sends sparks through his skin, the entire universe around them narrowed to that one loose contact of Ovid's skin on his. It's not even that he watches Ovid all the time; it's just, Ovid's every movement catches his attention like a rabbit caught in a snare, and he can't help but be hyperaware of their proximity, every minute of the day.

He's pulled down onto the grassy verge beside the path, Petronius passing with Horatius and smiling in passive greeting before ascending the steps to the library. Ovid watches them disappear, swallowed by the gaping black jaws of the library and its deathly silence before turning to Catullus again, who quickly pretends he was looking at a flower he's crushed beneath thoughtless hands, instead of staring at the small pouch of fat underneath Ovid's jaw and thinking about how much he enjoyed kissing it the last time they had lain together.

"I've still not seen Vergilius." Ovid sighs, pulling daisies up by the stems idly, squinting into the bright light above them. "Do you think he's hiding?"

Catullus mumbles something noncommittal along the lines of 'maybe he is hiding', before settling down to lay on the grass, pointedly nudging his head against Ovid's thigh. Ovid rolls his eyes but obediently begins to card his fingers through Catullus' hair, and Catullus grins to himself, closing his eyes.

Ovid quietly talks to himself as they lay there, sun warming their cold skin, and Catullus drifts. He thinks about the Rome he left, with its bustling streets and constant shouting and clanging of vendors hawking their wares and boys running errands. He thinks about his Lesbia, and wonders if, somehow, she has managed to make her way here - wherever here is - also. Thinks about the soft, smooth curves of her body, the way she would arch and grasp at him as he buried himself inside her, the way she would sigh into his mouth when he kissed her -

"Have you fallen asleep?"

Ovid's voice cuts through the fantasy, and he shakes his head drowsily, readjusting himself clumsily and repositioning the folds of his toga to hide any embarrassing apparitions beneath the thick material. Ovid laughs, and draws his hand away gently; Catullus opens his eyes to see him cock an eyebrow mischievously, gaze fixed on Catullus' crotch.

"Oh! Well, even if you were asleep, part of you certainly wasn't. He's looking far more lively than last I saw him-"

"You promised not to talk about that!" Catullus bolts upright to thump him, glowering, and Ovid laughs, expression full of mischief as he catches Catullus' wrists and wrestles him down to lie against the grass, rolling on top of him.

"I promised not to talk about it... But what's one broken promise between friends? And you're more than friendly with mine." He stroked one finger teasingly down the rigid length of Catullus' cock under his toga, smirking up at him. "Maybe he wants to make friends with mine, too."

Catullus swallows hard, writhing underneath Ovid to try and escape his grasp, but the thrashing of his body only grinds him against Ovid's rear and worsens the situation in his underwear. Ovid is laughing at him as he swings his leg over and off of Catullus, settling down beside him again with wicked dark eyes dancing.

"He wants to do it again. Do you?" He runs a finger over Catullus' prick again, and Catullus sucks in a breath, trying to say _gods, yes_ and _no!_ at the same time and ending up making a strange nod-shake movement with his head. "Give it a try sober," Ovid grins, eyes glinting, a challenge.

Catullus has never once backed down from any challenge set to him by Ovid.  
  


* * *

 

From then onwards, they seem to be constantly at it until Catullus is sore and loose from overuse, and both of them are so exhausted that neither can even think about attempting another round. They do it laying on beds, outside on the grass (Vergilius almost caught them as he was ambling through the gardens on one of his rare excursions outside), standing up against the walls, wherever they can find when they've got the time.

Ovid wraps his arms around Catullus' waist and hauls him closer, pressing deeper and laughing breathlessly into Catullus' shoulder when it makes him yelp and claw at whichever surface they've found. Catullus relishes it; this closeness is something he has missed most about being where he is, without Lesbia to console him. Before Ovid and their goings-on, there had been nobody to hold him this way or to share his heart and body with; but now, with his friend, he receives the physical benefits of a relationship along with the emotional ones, without dealing with constant and needling infidelities the way he had had to with Lesbia.

He keeps this to himself, though. It had not taken long for him to realise that Ovid saw their fucking as something casual; friends blowing off steam together, rather than the emotional commitment Catullus had at first taken it for. He had tried to separate himself from those feelings, tamping down on the bursts of joy he got every time Ovid took him in his arms and kissed and bit at his neck; but it had done him no good. The heart does not listen to the mind; he had learned that with Lesbia, and apparently forgotten it in time to have to be re-confronted by that knowledge now with Ovid.

And since that first kiss, the one that had started everything - Ovid's mouth on his, biting his lower lip and teasing his tongue into Catullus' mouth - Ovid has never kissed him again. There have been times when he's pressed hot, open-mouthed kisses to shoulders, or hands, or the knobbles of Catullus' spine - but never his lips. Catullus has tried to initiate a couple, but was always pushed away with a laugh and a friendly tousle of his hair, and the uncomfortable, wary expression in Ovid's eyes had told Catullus not to try it again.

It hurt, of course, but he's recovered. He can manage a fuck without expecting the world from Ovid, without wanting kisses under the stars and hand-holding in public and declarations of undying love. Again, Lesbia had taught him that he will never get the picture-perfect idea of love he has always clung to; that he was too skinny, too ugly, too clingy to be worth such deep and faithful emotions. Ovid doesn't necessarily treat him exactly the same way, but Catullus can tell he's still being held at arm's length.

He's just forcing himself to be okay with that.  
  


* * *

 

It's easier than he had expected, though, to be 'just friends' (Ovid's words, not his own), with a man he wants nothing more than to either fuck senseless or be _truly together_ with. Ovid isn't just attractive; although he oozes an open and intense sexuality - he had, after all, been a success with the women of Rome during his lifetime - he is irresistibly charming in other ways, too. He just exudes charisma, of the sort that leaves Catullus unable even to be frustrated by Ovid's refusal to have anything more than a friendly-physical relationship with him. And that charm works on everyone; from the way the others tell it, even during their first lives - their _real_ lives - Ovid had barely been able to walk down the street in the city without someone calling his name, whether a friend, a jealous husband or an adoring woman. Even in the case of the husband, a few silver-tongued words and Ovid would be able to walk away without a black eye, no mean feat.

And yet, he never talks about anybody from his past life the way Catullus has heard some of the others do. Cicero can always be heard droning on about his past greatness, and even Vergilius has been known to crack one of his shy smiles and come out of his shell a little when Maecenas is mentioned. But Ovid is different; a walking contradiction. So popular in his past, and yet now he just laughs stories off as _nothing_ or _no one_ , _nobody important_.

It's not like they could openly admit it in the first place, though. To be sexually involved with another man, as an adult man himself, is not widely accepted in the mindset of the time they all hail from. Catullus lives in fear of the word _cinaedus_ being thrown at him from the spiteful mouth of one of his comrades - he likes to think, of course, that none of them would ever insult him that way, but surprises can make people say strange things. Ovid, too, tells him that they have to keep it quiet; that it's not something any of the others need to know about. To the rest of the Romans, they're friends, that's all. They're Ovid's 'nobody important' to one another; nothing untoward is happening between the pair of them, it never has, and it never will.

Catullus couldn't help wondering if maybe, should one of the others actually ask, whether that would be Ovid's answer regarding him. "It's nothing. We're just friends."

The thought makes his stomach clench.  
  


* * *

 

Horatius finds him one afternoon, sat on the steps to the villa, and sits down beside him. As soon as his arse hits the marble, Catullus knows what the conversation is going to be about, and Horatius doesn't disappoint. The first words out of his mouth are,

"What's this with yourself and our Ovidius now?"

He gives Horatius a weak smile, running his fingers through his hair agitatedly. How was he supposed to answer? _I've still not learned from someone who treated me like a plaything last time, and now I've fallen hopelessly for my best friend who's just as much of a playboy? We're fucking, but we're just friends? We haven't really put a label on it yet, but I'm desperately in love with him and he just wants me for sex?_ His pride won't allow any of those to leave his lips in answer. Horatius doesn't need to know. Nobody needs to know how weak he is.

"I don't know," he says, quietly, an admission that stings. Horatius' expression softens, eyes pitying, and he rubs Catullus' back gently.

"That bad, eh, laddie?"

They're not stupid, Catullus knows. Petronius seems to always be watching them nowadays, his quick, clever eyes always catching Ovid's hand on his hip when they think nobody's looking, or Catullus' eyes lingering a little too long on the curve of his lips, or the skin of his chest or thick calves. He sees it; he witnesses this, the feeling Catullus is drowning in; want, and cannot have.

He _hmm_ 's morosely and stands up, brushing the dust off his toga. Horatius sighs heavily, pensive, and looks up at him.

"You two're the closest of any of us," he says gently, a soft smile on his lips. "Except maybe Cicero and Atticus. You've always been that way. Whatever it is... it'll sort out."

He smiled reassuringly at Catullus and climbed the steps, stepping through the doorway and leaving the wood to slam shut with a bang behind him, Catullus still lingering, frozen in place, below.

**Author's Note:**

> Can you believe there's going to be a whole set of these coming because are you ready for them???
> 
> (I need to stop writing Dead Romans porn/fic and start revising for my exams. Bad student!)


End file.
